Republic of Karelia

The Republic of Karelia is a federal subject of Russia located in the northwest of the country, with Petrozavodsk serving as its capital. Karelia was originally an Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic under the Soviet Union, but it declared state sovereignty on 9 August 1991 during the Dissolution of the Soviet Union and was renamed to the "Republic of Karelia" on 13 November 1991. Since the Soviet annexation of Karelia in 1940 during the Winter War, the percentage of native Karelians in the republic has dropped from 37.4% in 1926 to 7.4% in 2010, while the percentage of Russians increased from 57.2% to 82.2% in the same timeframe. Karelia had a population of 643,548 people in 2010.